Cookie Law is Dead

I said that inertia would win and it has.

Background
Last May all websites were supposed to have a Cookie Widget or a £500 fine, a warning to alert users that websites use cookies and gather information. I alerted all my clients, and gave them the option of the widget or a notice on the privacy policy page today that cookies were in use, but weren’t there to take your inside leg measurement.

The annoying thing about this new European law was that if it was so important then I fail to understand why a big fat television campaign hadn’t happened across the whole of the UK alerting people that they had to comply!

The widget was to get people to ‘Opt In’ to the websites cookies being operated, my philosophy was that cookies have always been there and it was far more sensible to give people the option to opt out.

What I did
I informed my clients of the impending Cookie Law and tested the Widget on my own website, half an hour later I took it down.

Most of my clients chose to have the notice – this was my recommendation due to the fact that having the Widget rendered the site incapable of sending enough information to google and therefore upsetting your SEO.

Resistance to the law has won the day – they now concede that a simple notice will do!

I spent HOURS researching what this was all about and read the official site, worried about what I should do, and finally decided to follow the lead of the BBC and Suffolk County Council who simply had the notice.

The Conclusion
I said at the time that inertia will win the day, and I am pleased to find out that this has been the case.